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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29158110">Let Me Go</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onehelluvapilot/pseuds/Onehelluvapilot'>Onehelluvapilot</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Febuwhump [28]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Merlin (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt Lancelot (Merlin), Hurt/Comfort, Lancelot's friends don't let him go through with it but he tries, Magic, Psychological Trauma, Self-Sacrifice, Trauma</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 10:14:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,737</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29158110</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onehelluvapilot/pseuds/Onehelluvapilot</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Lancelot gets cursed by a witch with a spell that will not only kill him, but make him kill one of his friends. In a desperate attempt to avoid hurting people, Lancelot isolates himself, but his friends aren't about to let him go without a fight.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Lancelot &amp; Merlin (Merlin)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Febuwhump [28]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2134998</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Let Me Go</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Betaed by LiGi, who has done all of my Febuwhump stories and also wrote a number of her own! Go check them out!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>This was Lancelot's worst nightmare. Since he was a child, his only goal in life had been to protect others. Once he made friends, his focus was obviously on them, though he retained his desire to care for everyone. So, to not only be unable to protect them, but to actively be putting them in danger was almost physically painful. Though, perhaps the gnawing feeling in his stomach was just the spell eating deeper.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Arthur, Merlin, and the knights had ridden out of the city to investigate a series of murders in the villages. Though the perpetrator was different in each one,  it was clear they were somehow linked. Each time, a man or woman killed someone that by all accounts they got along with or even loved, including husbands, wives, parents, and children. They could never be questioned about their motive, because they passed away soon after committing the murder. From what cause exactly was unclear. Sorcery had been the suspected culprit, and it was confirmed when the knights caught up to the witch behind all the deaths. Before they'd managed to kill her, she'd cursed Lancelot like she had the other victims. In the next few hours, he was destined to kill one of his friends and die himself, unless they could somehow stop it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Merlin, Merlin, please, you can't let me hurt anyone," he begged, already desperate. His hands fumbled with his belt, trying to get his sword and scabbard off. He threw them away from himself as soon as he managed it and his eyes pleaded with Leon for him to pick the weapon up and take it further from him. "You have to tie me up. Tie me up and leave me. I can't- I can't, I </span>
  <em>
    <span>can't</span>
  </em>
  <span> hurt any of you. I couldn't bear it."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You're not going to hurt anyone, Lancelot," Merlin tried to reassure him. "And we are not leaving you."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You have to, please. You have to let me go."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"</span>
  <em>
    <span>No</span>
  </em>
  <span>. The spell would kill you. I will not allow that to happen."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I would rather die than hurt any of you."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You don't have to do either," Merlin tried to insist. Lancelot wasn't seeing sense however and simply presented his wrists, pressed tightly together, forward in a clear plea for them to be bound. The warlock should have known that his friend wouldn't be rational about this. Not when the spell seemed tailor-made to cause him as much grief as possible.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"We can tie you up, Lance, if that's what you want," Arthur said, nodding for Elyan to retrieve the rope from his saddle bags. "But we are not going to leave you. It is only a few hours' ride to Camelot, and there we can find a cure for this spell." He had no way of knowing that Gaius and Merlin actually could find a solution, still ignorant of their frequent use of magic, but he had faith nonetheless. Merlin felt his heart swell with both pride and responsibility. Lancelot looked similarly caught between emotions, his being anguish and relief. He was terrified of hurting his friends and terrified of dying alone. Percival helped him to his feet after Arthur had finished tying his hands together and assisted him with the challenge of getting up onto his horse.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Take the reins away from me," the cursed knight asked. "I shouldn't be able to control my horse. I could ride off or try to knock you down should the spell take hold."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Though he thought it was a bit of an overreaction, Arthur looped the reins over in front of Lancelot's mare's head and tied them with a rope to the pommel of his own saddle so he could lead both horse and rider. Once everyone was mounted and had taken up a position arrayed around Lancelot at a safe distance, they began to make their way as fast as they dared towards Camelot, and the promise of salvation for their friend.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>By the time they arrived in the castle's courtyard, Lancelot was pale and shaking. Evidently the part of the spell that eventually killed the one cursed with it, rather than their loved ones, was taking hold. He needed help dismounting from his horse, and not just because of the awkwardness of bound hands. His body was clearly weakened and his legs almost went out from under him, but he still had enough strength to resist being moved towards the stairs that led up to Gaius's chambers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"No, it's not safe for me to be up there," he insisted. "The dungeon, you should put me in the dungeon." They tried to argue with him, but he was uncompromising, and the attempts were just making him more agitated. With his already weakened state, Merlin wondered if they were doing more harm than good by fighting with him, and reluctantly consented to putting him in a cell. Elyan was sent to get him something warm to eat, however, and Gwaine to fetch the blanket from Merlin's bed, which he hoped could be there for the knight and provide him some measure of calm when he wouldn't allow the warlock himself to do so.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leaving Lancelot down in the dungeons was one of the hardest things Merlin had ever done, but he couldn't very well read his book of magic in public without being imprisoned himself. Fortunately, the knights had already come up with a rotation where one of them always sat on the outside of their friend's cell. They reported to Gaius on his condition every time the shift changed, which was every half hour. Though it wasn't easy to get an accurate assessment from the knight, who was intent on hiding his pain so as not to make the others worry, he seemed to be getting worse. He'd struggled to take his own armor off, which was to, quote, "make it easier for you to kill me if you need to defend yourself," and paced back and forth across the cell with Merlin's blanket clutched around his shoulders. He'd even taken his gambeson off, despite the warmth the padded shirt could provide.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"How is he?" Merlin asked Gwaine when he came down to the dungeon himself. He had found a spell he thought might be able to save Lancelot, and had it written out on a scrap of paper and tucked into his pocket. Before he could use it, though, he had to get any other witnesses to leave. Lancelot being in the dungeon made using magic far harder, and the warlock wondered that if given a moment to speak alone, he would have been able to convince him to come to his own room instead, to help protect the magic user's secret.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"He won't speak to us much, or come close enough for us to get a good look at him, but it's clear he's terrified and in pain," Gwaine whispered back, glancing towards the cell. Lancelot had stopped pacing, and now was just huddled in the back corner with his back turned towards the door. The bowl of soup sat near him, untouched and probably cold at this point.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I've brought some herbs Gaius thinks might help," Merlin lied. "Could you get some hot water for him to wash them down with?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gwaine gave him a skeptical look, and Merlin realized his cover story wasn't the best, since most herbs were prepared as a tea and anyway, if he’d known he was going to need the water, why wouldn’t he have just brought it down with him? The knight must've understood on some level, though, that his friend was really asking for privacy, or else he was just too worried to argue, because he nodded and left.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Lance?" Merlin called when he was gone, approaching the cell door slowly and crouching down, as if trying not to startle an injured animal. "I think I can help you, but I need you to come over here."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Merlin, I can't," came the pitiful reply. "I can't risk hurting you."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What, and you think I can't defend myself? I'm far from helpless, as you of all people should know," he tried to reassure his friend. Normally Lancelot reacted strongly, even violently, to any insult about his friend’s strength or competence, but now, it seemed that even accusing the knight himself of underestimating the servant couldn’t prompt a reaction. Merlin switched to begging. "Please, Lancelot. Losing you would hurt me more than you yourself ever could. Don't make me go through that knowing I could have helped you. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Come here</span>
  </em>
  <span>."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Slowly and reluctantly, the knight unfolded himself from the corner. Keeping Merlin's blanket pulled tightly around his shoulders, he shuffled over to the bars and knelt down on the other side from his friend. His hands stayed clenched so tightly around the edges of the blanket that his knuckles were white. Maybe he thought that if his hands stayed occupied, he wouldn't be able to reach through the bars and strangle anyone, or whatever other homicidal instinct the spell was creating in him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I'm going to reach through and touch your forehead now, alright?" he asked. Lancelot nodded, and when the servant's hand connected with the knight's forehead, he seemed incapable of resisting the urge to lean forward and press his head further into the contact. He may have been terrified of human touch at the moment, but that didn't mean he didn't need it. Merlin forced himself not to flinch at the unexpected movement and instead reached out with his magic to search for the spell plaguing his friend.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"There's something wrong," he said after a minute, his brows furrowing in confusion. Lancelot jolted at the statement and started to pull away before he reassured him. "No no no, not like that," he said. "Neither you or I are in any danger. In fact, I don't know if we ever were."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What does that mean?" Lancelot asked. His eyes were wide: terrified and hopeful all in one. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You aren't cursed." Merlin couldn't feel a trace of malevolent magic anywhere in his friend's soul. He realized he hadn't touched Lancelot since they'd run into the witch. The knight hadn't let him; only Percival and Arthur, the two physically strongest members of their group, had been allowed to even get near him, and that was only to tie him up. Merlin fiercely regretted not insisting on examining Lancelot earlier; he could have saved all of them so much fear and time if he had only felt this earlier. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I don't think you ever were. Did you ever feel like you were cursed? Have any urges to harm anyone?" After a second's pause to consider it, he shook his head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I was scared of it, terrified, because hurting you is the last thing in the world that I wanted to do."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I thought that there might be something different after it had been hours and you still seemed like yourself," Merlin admitted. He wouldn't say that the knight seemed normal, exactly, but he hadn't been acting like the warlock himself had acted under the effects of the fomorrah or as Elyan had when he'd been possessed. His fear and the instinct to isolate himself and protect his friends at every turn was a very Lancelot reaction. "All of the other victims had succumbed to apparent homicidal rages within a few hours; I knew the fact that yours was taking longer had to mean something. And when Gaius and I looked up the spell to find a cure, there was a word written down in it that I’m pretty sure the witch didn’t get a chance to say, and the spell cut off when she was killed. I don't think she finished the curse. You were never going to hurt any of us."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This statement, of all things, was the one to cause Lancelot to burst into tears. He released his death grip on the blanket to raise both hands to his face, covering his mouth and nose as he pressed his eyes closed. Merlin reached through the bars to hold him, deeply regretting not practicing that lock picking spell he'd found. Perhaps it was for the best, though, as Gwaine still held the key and would have found it suspicious for the door to be open when he returned with the hot water, which he did after just a minute. His reaction, however, to seeing Lancelot returning Merlin's grip on him through the bars, was unfortunate.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Let go of him!" The knight, who was always over-protective of Merlin, shouted fiercely, drawing his sword with one hand while the other grabbed the back of the servant's collar to drag him away. Only letting go because he was startled, he tumbled backwards to the floor as Lancelot slumped against the bars of the cell.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I wasn't hurting him, I swear," the imprisoned knight sobbed. Gwaine looked to Merlin, who was already scrambling to his feet, for confirmation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"He wasn't. He's fine, he's not cursed anymore. Give me the keys."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Are you sure?" Gwaine asked hesitantly, even as he handed the key over.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Does it look like he's trying to kill me?" Merlin asked as he unlocked the cell door. Lancelot made no attempt to stand up and didn't even turn to face his friend when he dropped down to his knees next to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It could be a ruse," the other knight suggested. "Trying to get us to let our guard down."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It's not," Lancelot replied, choked up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The emotion in his voice was such an odd combination of fear, relief, and simply being overwhelmed that it couldn't be faked, Gwaine decided. And he trusted Merlin, so he followed him into the cell and knelt down on Lancelot's other side. The knight grabbed the arm that he put around his chest as he hugged him, doing the same to Merlin's arm. Between the two of them, they practically hid him from the world as he cried in pure relief and residual fear. Admittedly, their eyes weren't exactly dry either. He exhausted himself quickly, and by the time Percival arrived for his shift to keep Lancelot company, he was slumped in their arms, though still awake.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Is he-" the big knight asked, unable to finish his question for fear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I'm okay, Percy," Lance reassured him, struggling to sit up. Gwaine and Merlin helped him, and once standing he managed to stay that way, though he was still shaky from the relief. "It's over."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Over?" Percival ducked in to help him when he stumbled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It's over," Merlin confirmed. Lancelot was thankful that he didn't explain that it had never actually been an issue. He knew his friends would be thankful that he was okay, as well as the fact that they hadn't been in danger from him, but he would be embarrassed for them to know that all the 'symptoms' of the curse, the weakness and shaking and aching stomach and crying, had just been caused by his anxiety over it. "Come on, let's get you up to my room where you can rest. It may be small, but it's still a lot more comfortable than this cell!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gwaine left to go inform the others of the development while Percival helped Lancelot up to Merlin's room. The big knight hugged his friend tightly and for a long time before finally letting him go so he could get some rest. Despite the fact that the bed should not have been big enough for both of them, Merlin crawled under the covers with Lancelot so he could hold him and stroke his hair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Are you feeling any better?" he asked gently.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"A little," Lancelot admitted, murmuring the answer against the taller man's chest. Merlin was the only person that he wasn’t embarrassed to show how afraid he was, and how terrible he still felt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s good. I’m sure a nap will help too, and then we can talk?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lancelot grimaced, but he knew he wasn’t going to escape his friend wanting to have a conversation about what had happened, and that he was probably going to get called out on his self-destructive isolating behaviour. Hopefully after some rest he would feel more ready to face that. For now though, he was relieved that Merlin stayed with him, pulling him in close against his chest and stroking his hair until he managed to calm down enough to sleep.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thus concludes Febuwhump! Thank you all for reading!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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